Constant Crisis

MEDIA BLOW YET ANOTHER RECOUNT. Former vice president Al
Gore would have picked up 49 votes in Miami-Dade County if the hand
count of ballots ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had been
completed and "dimpled" chads had been counted, according to a study
done for USA Today, the Miami Herald and Knight Ridder
Newspapers. But the Feb. 26 reports called the results a blow to
Democratic claims that Gore would have won the election if a hand
recount had occurred, ignoring reviews of ballots in other counties
that show Gore leading Bush by more than 1,000 votes.

The mainstream media, eager to bring closure to the election,
embraced the Miami-Dade County findings as endorsement of Bush's
victory. "Review Finds Bush Won Despite Miami Recount," the
Washington Post headlined. The Wall Street Journal
noted, "A review of Florida ballots suggested Gore wouldn't have
gained enough in a recount to win the presidency, the Miami
Herald said.'' TV followed suit. They ignored the Jan. 27 Palm
Beach Post finding that, had dimpled ballots in Palm Beach County
been counted, as Democrats wanted and state law allowed, Gore would
have picked up 682 votes in that county alone, which is more than
Bush's official 537-vote statewide margin of victory. Also unnoticed
was the Orlando Sentinel's Feb. 11 report that Gore would have
gained 203 votes in Orange County if ballots that were rejected by
scanners but clearly showed presidential preferences had been
counted.

A tally at Democrats.com showed Gore leading by 1,017 votes after
various "recounts" so far. A media consortium also is still examining
under-votes and over-votes in all of Florida's 67 counties.

BRITS FIND FLA VOTE PROBLEMS. Thousands of mainly black
voters in Florida were disenfranchised improperly because of
wholesale errors by a private data services company, the British
Broadcasting Corp. reported. Information supplied by Database
Technologies (DBT) led to tens of thousands of Floridians being
removed from the electoral roll on the grounds that they had felonies
on their records. However, the BBC found that the list was riddled
with mistakes that led to thousands of voters -- a disproportionate
number of them black -- being wrongly disenfranchised. The Florida
state government, where George W. Bush's brother Jeb is governor, did
nothing to correct the errors, and may have encouraged them, the BBC
reported, as the London-based Guardian noted Feb. 17.

DBT compiled the list by looking for rough matches between names
and dates of birth of people on the voter list and convicted felons.
Thus, a Christine Smith could have been disqualified if there had
been a Christopher Smith of the same age with a felony record
somewhere in the US. Race also was a matching criterion, skewing the
impact of the errors even more against black voters, of whom 90%
voted for Democrat Al Gore.

BUSH CONTINUES EXTREMIST PICKS. While Democrats were
preoccupied with Bill Clinton's controversial pardons, George W. Bush
nominated right-wing lawyer Ted Olson, who helped Bush win his 5-4
victory at the US Supreme Court, to be his solicitor general. Jake
Tapper of Salon.com noted that Olson was also one of Clinton's chief
antagonists, as head of the "Arkansas Project," the
multimillion-dollar investigation into Clinton's pre-White House days
as funneled through American Spectator magazine. He
represented Whitewater witness David Hale, and coached Paula Jones'
attorneys before their Supreme Court argument. "Bush is acting like
he won 60% of the vote and 340 electoral votes on top of it," former
Sen. Bob Kerrey told Tapper. "He's pressing way beyond his mandate."
But who's to stand in his way? Tapper asked. "They're trying to get
their sea legs," Kerrey said of his former colleagues.

TELEVANGELIST BLASTS CHURCH AID. Even some of George W.
Bush's political allies are having second thoughts about his
"faith-based" initiative, as TV preacher Pat Robertson Feb. 21
describing the plan to provide public funding of to minority
religions as "appalling" and would open a "Pandora's Box."

"This means Bush's plan is in enormous political trouble," said
Rev. Barry W. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and
State. "When staunch Bush allies like Robertson start jumping ship,
the plan clearly appears to be sinking."

BUSH ENDORSES HOMELAND GUARD. George W. Bush Feb. 14
endorsed an expansion of the National Guard's responsibilities to
fighting "domestic terrorism," an idea that was recommended Jan. 31
by a congressionally appointed commission on national security led by
former senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.).
"As threats to America change, your role will continue to change,"
Bush told Guardsmen in Charleston, W.V. "The National Guard and
reservists will be more involved in homeland security, confronting
acts of terror and the disorder our enemies may try to create." The
commission also recommended establishing a homeland defense agency
that would consolidate several agencies now involved in such
duty.

DEMOCRATS QUESTION RULE SUSPENSION. Three Democratic
senators said Feb. 20 that the Bush administration may be breaking
the law by suspending a new federal rule that prevents the government
from awarding contracts to bidders who have broken environmental,
labor, tax and other laws. Sens. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), Edward
Kennedy (Mass.) and Richard Durbin (Ill.) asked Budget Director
Mitchell Daniels to "halt the administration's unwise and possibly
unlawful efforts to suspend the requirement that the government not
do business with chronic lawbreakers.'' The "contractor
responsibility'' rule, which took effect on Jan. 20, President
Clinton's last day in office, requires consideration of a potential
contractor's compliance with tax, labor and employment,
environmental, antitrust, and consumer protection laws before making
an award. A Bush administration official authorized federal agencies
to suspend the new rule until July 19. Labor unions favor the rule,
but business groups filed suit against it, arguing that linking
contract awards to violations of laws unrelated to federal
procurement is unfair.